Movies
They Sort of, Kind of Already Remade ‘Escape From New York’
A Paris appeals court has ruled that writer Luc Besson must pay more than $500,000 (450,000 euros) in damages to John Carpenter and rights holder StudioCanal for plagiarizing Carpenter’s 1981 classic Escape From New York when he made the 2012 film Lockout, Deadline reports. Agence France-Presse reported on the ruling today.
How long until this iMDB credit gets changed?
This comes after Besson had appealed an original ruling in the case last fall that ordered Besson, his EuropaCorp production company and Besson’s Lockout co-writers/directors Stephen St. Leger and James Mather to pay $95,000 (85,000 euros) to co-writer/director Carpenter, co-writer Nick Castle and StudioCanal.
In Lockout, Guy Pierce stars as a wrongly convicted man who is offered his freedom if he can rescue the U.S President’s daughter (Maggie Grace) from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates.
Escape From New York centers on Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a soldier-turned-bank robber who is forced to rescue the U.S. President when his plane crash-lands in Manhattan which has become a giant maximum-security prison taken over by inmates.
Carpenter’s original lawsuit sought $2.4 million (2.2M euros), saying his movie was copied.
A Besson spokesman told AFP today they were “very surprised by the ruling, but the judges have spoken and we will accept their judgment.”
Surprised as they may be, the court has ruled it as a plagiarized story, which means Lockout is pretty much an unauthorized remake of Escape From New York.
Have any of you seen Lockout?
In addition to Leigh Whannell’s upcoming Universal Monsters movie Wolf Man, Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel) has also joined the cast of Weapons, THR has announced tonight.
Weapons is the new horror movie from New Line Cinema and director Zach Cregger (Barbarian), with Julia Garner joining the previously announced Josh Brolin (Dune 2).
The upcoming Weapons is from writer/director Zach Cregger, who will also produce alongside his Barbarian producing team: Roy Lee of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. Vertigo’s Miri Yoon also produces.
The Hollywood Reporter teases, “Plot details for Weapons are being kept holstered but it is described as a multi and inter-related story horror epic that tonally is in the vein of Magnolia, the 1999 actor-crammed showcase from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.”
Cregger was a founding member and writer for the New York comedy troupe “The Whitest Kids U’Know,” which he started while attending The School of Visual Arts. The award-winning group’s self-titled sketch comedy show ran for five seasons on IFC-TV and Fuse. He was also a series regular on Jimmy Fallon’s NBC series “Guys with Kids” and the TBS hit series “Wrecked,” and was featured in a recurring role on the NBC series “About a Boy.”
Weapons will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.
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